Jonathan Whittaker's Final Quidditch Match
by Duff Moose
Summary: Can Filament Flitwick, Argus Filch, and Rubeus Hagrid find a suitable captain for the school Quidditch team before their imminent match against the rival Durmstrang? Everything rides on the unmatched athletic abilities of one Jonathan Whittaker.


Albus Dumbledore let out a blood curdling scream.

The dining hall fell silent. Students and teachers alike set down their silverware and halted their conversations. Even the first years could tell the situation was serious. Dumbledore swept the tears from his face with one hand and dropped the newspaper he had clutched with the other. He leaned in to the microphone.

"This is a very serious problem indeed!" He said this in a soft voice, but one could tell that his temper was barely constrained. "Once again, in the sports section of Wizardly Weekly, commentator Ludo Bagman predicts that we will lose to Durmstrang one hundred and eighty points to sixty! He further suggests Alicia will go down to a bludger, Draco will let through an uninterrupted series of goals heretofore never seen in this sport and that Harry Potter will find yet a new way to break every bone in his body while pursuing a small winged golden ball!"

"And you!" he continued as he turned to face me, "You have cost an untold amount of money to this school by coaching the single least successful team in the history of Hogwarts. If you want to keep your job as both coach and professor you are going to whip this team into shape for Thursday's match. Have you anything to say to that, Professor Filament Flitwick?"

"Only that I have quite the job ahead of me!" I replied. "Fear not, professor, for I know exactly what I need to do to get this team ready by tomorrow."

The man's expression softened considerably. "Well, let us hope so, for all our sakes. I will leave Filch and Hagrid with you. You'll need all the help you can get."

With that, Dumbledore got up from his seat and left. Shortly afterwards the students and staff resumed their meals. Filch and Hagrid, already done eating, then approached me with uneasy looks on their faces.

"Blimey, I thought you were a dead man there for a second." said groundskeeper Filch, "What is it you think can change the fortunes of this misbegotten team?"

I replied, "It's very simple, my dear friend Argus. We need to recruit Jonathan Whittaker!"

Smiles crept on all of our faces. This was it. We were going to beat Durmstrang, and all we needed was the greatest Quidditch player of this generation.

We found Jonathan where he could always be found: sitting on the bleachers in the Hogwarts Stadium. Though he may not have played in several years it was still well known that Jonathan was the best player around. Now it seemed all he ever did was watch from an empty corner of the stands, as if wistfully longing for those days to return. I thought recruiting him would be easy.

"I am sorry coach, but I just can't do it! I loved this sport almost as much as I loved my girl, but they are now both forever lost to me. You cannot ask me to return. It is a part of me that died long ago."

"Girl?" Hagrid responded, "You mean that Abbott lass? She still attends this school and everything. I'm pretty sure you and her share a Magical Creatures class under me."

"Alas, she is so close and yet so far away." Whittaker's voice almost had a melodic quality to it when he spoke. "Ever since I missed our three month anniversary to attend the Quidditch World Cup, she has refused to speak with me. My heart has been broken ever since. If she were to come back to me, if I might hold her again, then maybe, but without her I can only come here and reminisce about how great things were."

Suddenly I was aware of the full extent of his pain, and I responded: "I, too, once loved a young woman, and long ago I passed up my chance with her to pursue my career. I am now in my forties, and there is nothing that can be done to help me. But you, Jonathan! You are so young and handsome and charismatic! There is time for you. I will bring Hannah Abbot back to you if it is the last thing I do, and when you win the Quidditch match for us tomorrow everything will be as it should have been!"

"Do this for me" he responded, "and I will become a permanent fixture of your team. On that you have my word!"

Hagrid and I left. We regaled Jonathan's tragic story to Filch and the three of us agreed to track down Hannah Abbot as soon as possible. The match was less than a day away.

The three of us stopped Hannah in the hallway as she left Transfigurations.

"Hello professors. What can I do for you?" She greeted us cheerfully.

"It is not what you can do for us" I responded, "but what you can do for Jonathan Whittaker. Certainly you know that you abandoned him all those years ago, when he needed your support most! You must give him a second chance, and if you do not the repercussions of your actions will be felt throughout the entire school!"

"Oh, I know!" She burst into tears. "I was so selfish at the time, and I have regretted my decision to end our relationship ever since. I could not bear to face him, knowing that he deserved better than me. But surely, he would never give me a second chance. What you ask is too much!"

"But Hannah, the bloke's told us that he wants nothing more than to be with you!" Filch chimed in. "All you have to do is approach him, and I'm certain all of this will figure itself out."

Now Hagrid jumped in as well: "The man's right. But you've got to approach him. Jonathan has too much on his plate to come to you. The responsibility is yours, little lady, and for everyone's sake you'd better see that it gets done."

Hannah regained some of her composure, and said "The three of you, leave me be! I cannot make a decision like this on so short notice, and when my life hangs in the balance!"

We left her, and decided that if we were going to win this match, we had better prepare for the possibility that Jonathan would not be joining us.

It was Thursday. We had heard not a single word about Jonathan or Hannah. The previous evenings practice had gone very poorly, with Harry suffering so many injuries that it was estimated he wouldn't walk again for another month. He was replaced by Lavender Brown, and untested rookie that Draco had suggested. After a preliminary warm-up the Durmstrang team arrived, and the match began soon after.

The first half went horrendously bad. Half of the team was repeatedly taken out by bludgers, and Draco really did manage to let through a record number of goals before finally preventing one. It was a dire situation, ninety-five to ten was the score, and less than half of the team was still in good enough health to play the second half. We needed a miracle. Jonathan could be seen sitting in the stands, alone, holding his old broom and silently cheering the team.

The second half started, and the results were much the same. Eventually Draco took a bludger to the face, and careened towards the ground. He was deemed out of commission, and we were forced to play with an unguarded goal.

I watched in abject horror as our final two players were so thoroughly out matched that Durmstrang scored one goal after the other. Indeed, the current score was making Ludo Bagman's estimate seem rather restrained in comparison, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Hannah and Jonathan hugging in the stands. Then, as he turned away from her, he leapt from the bleachers onto his broom, and joined the match. I was so ecstatic that I was in tears. Here, in the final moments of the game, Jonathan really was going to swoop in and save the day!

Of course, Jonathan was promptly seized by a Dementor referee for breaking the rule disallowing bystanders from interfering with an official match. Though this was not an infraction punishable with a Dementor's kiss, nearby Durmstrang authorities immediately arrested the boy in order to have him extradited and tried in one of their criminal courts, where the punishments were infamously severe. Dumbledore was furious with embarrassment, and made no effort to prevent this.

"Oi, we're gonna be next!" squeaked Filch. "When Dumbledore's through with us we'll have wished that we were in Durmstrang instead!"

"I'd rather visit France." I said as I promptly apportated outside of Hogwarts.


End file.
